It's great to have a plan, but not all events can be foreseen. After dropping Nicole off in Broome and picking up our next touring partner, Paulie, we headed to Derby and the Gibb River Road. First few days went according to schedule. We spent 2 nights at Windjana Gorge to view the ancient Devonian reef there and the hundreds of fresh water crocodiles. The highlight for Felix was the walk through Tunnel Creek with bats, tiny frogs, little crocodiles, wading through water, the dark cave sections. The highlight for Simon and Paulie was being pulled over by a park ranger while driving to settle Zoey to sleep and being accused of smuggling. Smuggling what?
Also at camp were a team doing some amazing night sky time lapse photography and filming. Some of our party had a drink (or two) with them but emerged not much the wiser as to their mission. We speljculated that they would produce a documentary for an obscure technical photography program somewhere.
We then headed to Silent Grove campsite on the road into Bell Gorge. It is a bit of a walk over rocks at the top of the waterfall to the swimming hole but definitely worth it. A really beautiful gorge with a waterfall cascading to a rock lined pool. Everything the tourist is promised from the Kimberley.
Our next move was to Mt Barnett, which we planned as a central point to explore Adcock, Galvans and Manning gorges. All to plan with Adcock and Galvans- both very charming and great for swimming. But then things became a bit interesting- it began to rain. In torrents. Our camp was flooded, Simon and Brit's awning collapsed under the weight of the water and tent poles buckled. The first night it was estimated that we had at least 100 millimetres. The camp manager declared the station road out impassable. Not a worry as we had planned to be here anyway. Brit, Torb and I walked to Manning Gorge where the falls were putting on a spectacular show thanks to the rain.
However, it continued to rain. We were told the Gibb River road was closed in both directions. We were stuck at the Mt Barnett campsite. Not a bad place to be stuck as there is a beautiful swimming spot next to camp and the gorge and river to explore. We thought a day or 2 extra wouldn't be bad but the prospects of moving became bleaker. The rivers in the Kimberley were reported to have risen by 2 metres and all attractions were closed. The camp had only generator power and no shop or supplies. All campers needed to be self sufficient. There were possibly 100 people here including tour groups accommodated in small tents and swags. For many the biggest problem was power to keep friges running. Many had being relying on solar, but with cloud cover this was now difficult. We had a generator so the only real problem would occur when our fuel supplies were exhausted. So although "marooned" is not technically correct that's how it felt. We were surrounded by water on our own little Mt Barnett island.
So what do you do when you can't move on? First assess supplies. Did we have enough food for the next few days? Fresh vegetables and bread were dwindling quickly but meat was definitely not a problem. With 5 adults and 2 children we consume a lot of food. Some planning foresight held us in good stead. Long life milk, SPC fruit for the kids and bread mix. We started making a loaf of bread a night in the camp oven. Our bread making skills improved rapidly.
We hand washed a lot of dirty clothes (no machines here) and then spent hours moving improvised washing lines around to avoid the rainy times. Everything still looked pretty red from the Kimberley dust.
We also spent quite a bit of time discussing how to tweak our itinerary when we finally could get underway. A bit fruitless really as we still didn't know when we could leave, or what would be open. We were told that the station road house was thick with campers waiting for the roads to reopen, and there were many more people camped at the road closed signs. We felt fortunate to be in a much better location than them. Only one thing for it- relax and wait. All up we spent 7 days at the Mt Barnett campground- 4 more than we intended.
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